The Guantánamo Files: An Archive of Articles — Part Seven, July to December 2010

4.1.11

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For five years, I have been researching and writing about Guantánamo and the 779 men (and boys) held there over the last nine years, first through my book The Guantánamo Files, which tells the story of the prison and around 450 of the prisoners, and then through 12 online chapters, which provide information about the majority of the other 329 prisoners (see the links in the left-hand column). Since May 2007, I have followed up on this project, working as a full-time independent investigative journalist, covering stories as they develop, and focusing in particular on the stories of released prisoners, the Military Commission trial system, and the prisoners’ progress in the courts, through their habeas corpus petitions. For nearly three years, I focused on the crimes of the Bush administration and, since January 2009, I have turned my attention to the failures of the Obama administration to thoroughly repudiate those crimes and to hold anyone accountable for them, and, increasingly, on the Obama administration’s failure to charge or release prisoners, and to show any sign that Guantánamo will eventually be closed.

My intention, all along, has been to bring the men to life through their stories, dispelling the Bush administration’s rhetoric about the prison holding “the worst of the worst,” and demonstrating how, instead, the majority of the prisoners were either innocent men, seized by the US military’s allies at a time when bounty payments were widespread, or recruits for the Taliban, who had been encouraged by supporters in their homelands to help the Taliban in a long-running inter-Muslim civil war (with the Northern Alliance), which began long before the 9/11 attacks and, for the most part, had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or international terrorism. As I explained in the introduction to my four-part Definitive Prisoner List (which I hope to update in the near future), I remain convinced, through detailed research and through comments from insiders with knowledge of Guantánamo, that “at least 93 percent of the 779 men and boys imprisoned in total” had no involvement with terrorism.

However, as this is a blog, rather than a website, I recognize that it is increasingly difficult to navigate, as there are so many “Categories,” and, most crucially, there is no access to articles in anything other than reverse chronological order. In an attempt to remedy this shortcoming, and to provide easy access to the most important articles on the site, I have, in the last year, put together six chronological lists of all my articles, covering the periods May to December 2007, January to June 2008, July to December 2008, January to June 2009, July to December 2009, and January to June 2010, in the hope that they will provide a useful tool for navigation, and will provide researchers — and anyone else interested in this particularly bleak period of modern history — with a practical archive.

This latest list brings the story up to date, covering my articles in the last six months, from July to December 2010. I’d like to say that progess was made in this period, but in fact the opposite is true, and over the last six months the activities of the Obama administration, of Congress, and of the D.C. Circuit Court, have ensured that Guantánamo may not close while Obama is in office.

Just seven prisoners — out of the 97 cleared for release by the President’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force — were released in the last six months. This was the lowest six-monthly total since 2002, and was largely because of the unprincipled moratorium on releasing any Yemenis (amounting to guilt by nationality) that was announced by the President last January after hysteria greeted the news that the failed Christmas Day plane bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (a Nigerian), had been recruited in Yemen. Under international pressure, the administration released a solitary Yemeni who had won his habeas corpus petititon, but no one cared — or seems to care still — that there was no basis to connect the remaining 58 Yemenis cleared for release by Obama’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force to a terrorist cell that had sprung up in Yemen in the last few years, or to presume that any released prisoner would somehow end up joining this cell. In fact, as the year came to an end, Congress also embroiled itself in the arguments, unconstitutionally including provisions in spending bills preventing the President from releasing any prisoner to a country regarded by lawmakers as dangerous — a list that included Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

When it came to trying any of the 35 prisoners that the Task Force recommended for trials, there was also little movement. Two men — Ibrahim al-Qosi, a sometime cook for Osama bin Laden’s entourage, and former child prisoner Omar Khadr — were put forward for trials by Military Commission, but were persuaded to accept plea deals so that the administration could avoid the embarrassment of actually proceeding with trials. In Khadr’s case, however, this could not disguise the fact that the Obama administration had proceeded with the first war crimes trial of a child prisoner since World War II, in spite of international treaties designed to guarantee the rehabilitation rather than the punishment of child soldiers, and, moreover, had done so by persuading Khadr to confess to war crimes that had been invented by Congress.

In October, the only man transferred from Guantánamo to the US mainland to face a federal court trial — Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a suspect in the 1998 African embassy bombings, and a former CIA “ghost prisoner” — was convicted on just one of the 285 charges that he faced, by a jury that was evidently unwilling to accept that he was a major player, but was prepared to accept that he was not entirely blameless. Despite the fact that Ghailani faces 20 years to life in prison, critics seized on the result as a failure, the administration did not protest enough that the result was actually a success, and, at year’s end, Congress responded with another unconstitutional power grab, including other provisions in the spending bills mentioned above, which prohibited any Guantánamo prisoner from being brought to the US mainland for any reason, and also prevented the administration from purchasing a prison on the US mainland to rehouse them. This was a naked ploy to prevent the administration from proceeding with the federal court trial of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, which had been announced by Attorney General Eric Holder in November 2009.

With little movement on releasing any of the 90 cleared prisoners still held, and the administration unable to proceed with federal court trials and unwilling to proceed with trials by Military Commission for any of the 33 men recommended for trials by the Task Force (after criticism of the appalling treatment of Omar Khadr), the final stumbling block to the closure of Guantánamo concerns the 48 prisoners recommended for indefinite detention without charge or trial by the Task Force. This was always an unacceptable proposal, as it risked permanently enshrining indefinite detention as US policy, and it was not reassuring that, instead of allowing these men’s habeas petitions to proceed, and relabeling those found to be have been soldiers as prisoners of war, administration officials announced instead that they were preparing an executive order endorsing the men’s detention, but providing them with the opportunity to have their cases periodically reviewed.

On habeas corpus, this was also a bleak period. Although two Yemenis won their habeas petitions, they are still held (and the government seems to have decided that appealing sucessful petitions — even in the case of an innocent man with severe mental health problems — is preferable to releasing them), and five other men lost their petitions, in part because the administration was happy for the notoriously Conservative D.C. Circuit Court to overturn successful petitions, and to propose a standard for detention that would have pleased the most hardline members of the Bush administration. This, too, remains a disgrace, and it is not reassuring that, with the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court, which may be called upon to review the basis of detention at Guantánamo for a fourth time, now has a default position on national security issues that is more right-wing than it was under President Bush.

In an attempt to highlight the plight faced by the remaining 174 prisoners at Guantánamo, I undertook a major project, beginning in September, telling the stories of all of these men. The first eight parts have been published (and are available here), and the ninth will follow soon.

Outside of Guantánamo, the administration continued to resist calls for accountability for the Bush administration’s torturers, invoking the little-known and little-used “state secrets” doctrine to prevent petitioners from even gaining access to a US courtroom with their complaints. This was the case with five men subjected to “extraordinary rendition” and torture in a variety of secret prisons, who had attempted to sue Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary, for its role as the CIA’s travel agent for torture, and it was a ploy that was so successful — despite being a blatant misuse of the precedent, cynically shielding any government activity from scrutiny by proclaiming “national security” concerns — that the administration also used it to prevent challenges to distressing innovations introduced under Obama — drone killings in Pakistan, and the unprecedented claim that, without any review process whatsoever, the President could order the assassination of US citizens abroad.

In sharp contrast to the US, the last six months were a significant period for activities relating to the accountability of the British government for its involvement in the “War on Terror,” with the new coalition government promising to establish a judicial inquiry into British complicity in torture abroad, and, in November, reaching a financial settlement with 15 former prisoners — and with Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo. This arose because of a need to stem the dangerous leak of revelations about the complicity in torture of senior government officials (including Tony Blair and Jack Straw), which — again in stark contrast to the US — were emerging on the order of senior judges from a civil claim for damages filed by seven former prisoners. Despite the protestations of the coalition government, however, the financial settlement not only established a precedent for other countries to follow, but also involved the tacit admission of guilt. It was, therefore, enormously important, even though it has not, to date, led to the release of Shaker Aamer, for whom a campaign is ongoing.

On the domestic front, the coalition government is involved in an internal struggle regarding the reform of the Labour government’s reviled anti-terror legislation, and specifically, the future of control orders (a form of house arrest for men held without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence), which had not been resolved by the end of the year. I will continue to cover this story this year, especially as the high-profile arguments within the government about the use of secret evidence do not currently extend to other men, held without charge or trial in similar circumstances in their homes, or in prison, while the government attempts to deport them to their home countries, where they face the risk of torture.

In addition, other aspects of UK politics also featured heavily in my work in the last few months of the year, as I began responding to the government’s ideologically-driven programme of savage cuts to university budgets, and to the welfare state, playing my part in the creation of a broad anti-cuts coalition that recognizes that, without a focus on the financial crimes committed in the City, and the loss of revenue through massive corporate tax evasion, the future for the UK promises to be increasingly bleak for anyone who is not either rich or super-rich. I expect that this campaign will consume more of my time in the months to come.

On the work front, this was a good time for me, as I continued working part-time for Cageprisoners as a Senior Researcher and writing a weekly column as a policy advisor for the Future of Freedom Foundation, and also wrote the occasional article for the Guardian and Truthout. I also undertook several TV and radio appearances, some of which are listed below. In addition, I visited the US in October for a week of events, “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week, which brought together a wonderful group of anti-torture writers, lawyers, activists and other experts, and was devoted to raising awareness about torture, and, in particular, about the crimes committed by John Yoo, author of the notorious Justice Department “torture memos” in 2002, who is now, disgracefuly, a law professor at US Berkeley. I also continued showing the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (which I co-directed with Polly Nash) at various locations in the UK, and was delighted to take part in two conferences in London organized by Amnesty International.

As ever, I thank my benefactors and supporters for their continuing support of my work. I’m visiting the US from January 6-12 to call for the closure of Guantánamo on the 9th anniversary of the prison’s opening, and will also continue to attend screenings of “Outside the Law” in venues across the UK — some in conjunction with Amnesty International. I will also, of course, be writing assiduously about Guantánamo, continuing the work I began five years ago. As the year ended, I asked my supporters to help me raise $1000 to help me continue the many aspects of my work for which I receive no financial support, and was delighted to receive $1200. However, this is an ongoing request, and, as a result, if you would like to support my work financially, please feel free to donate via the PayPal button above.

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Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo, co-director, We Stand With Shaker. Also, singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers) and photographer. Email Andy Worthington